The fun part about partially oxidized sulfurous and carbonaceous pollutants is that they tend to get scrubbed out of the air by natural processes before they get far beyond the general hinterland of the city generating them, so we can afford to point and laugh at the idiots who don't use the numerous inexpensive and effective methods we've developed to prevent such emissions instead of being worried about it.

Alternately, the sad part about China's predicament here is that the costs of containing or neutralizing the emissions the article's talking about are, in industrial terms, almost nonexistent, and they're poisoning entire cities to save hundredths of a cent on the dollar.

China reaps the poisonous fruit of generations of failed central economic planning. It's no coincidence that the world's Communist nations are also its worst polluters

Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

China reaps the poisonous fruit of generations of failed central economic planning. It's no coincidence that the world's Communist nations are also its worst polluters

Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

Jim_Callahan:The fun part about partially oxidized sulfurous and carbonaceous pollutants is that they tend to get scrubbed out of the air by natural processes before they get far beyond the general hinterland of the city generating them, so we can afford to point and laugh at the idiots who don't use the numerous inexpensive and effective methods we've developed to prevent such emissions instead of being worried about it.

Not disputing that but I wouldn't be so high-and-mighty about it. America was EVERY BIT as bad in the 1950s and 1960s. We were on pace to wipe out our forests entirely, we had rivers regularly catching fire (it wasn't just the Cuyahoga) and our extraction industries today are every bit as "fark the planet" as China's. The difference between China now and American then is that we citizens actually have a sliver of political power. Our industries had to be dragged like screaming toddlers into complying with the environmental regulations passed only because of enormous popular pressure. Our record is still spotty, but if we deregulated, we'd be probably be neck-and-neck with China's hellhole within a single generation, despite the "numerous inexpensive and effective methods we've developed". These companies skimp on worker safety for a hundredths of a penny of extra return on the investment dollar, so it's evident their contempt for environmental concerns would be on par with China.

Here's another one. As you can see by the clock it's a little past noon. That would be the brightest part of the day and some pedestrians are actually encased in their own personal cloud of pollution. Hats were worn, not to be fashionable but to keep pieces of soot from settling in their hair... OHMAHGAWD! Look! Typewriter store!I wonder if they had typewriter nerds back then. "Greetings, store owner. I can type 120 words per minutes. Can your typewriter keep up? I would like to try this new machine. I see you have extensive plastic parts. Is that innovation or are you just kowtowing to the Japanese knockoff market? I think I shall give it a simple test. (type type type) Ug! I knew I was a Royal man for a reason. I could barely get 30 words per minute on this thing. The keys are not tactile and the return lever is in the completely wrong position. I also suspect the ribbon will not last long. Good day, sir. I shall take my business down the street for I know there are several typewriter stores in this district alone.

Here's another one. As you can see by the clock it's a little past noon. That would be the brightest part of the day and some pedestrians are actually encased in their own personal cloud of pollution. Hats were worn, not to be fashionable but to keep pieces of soot from settling in their hair... OHMAHGAWD! Look! Typewriter store!I wonder if they had typewriter nerds back then. "Greetings, store owner. I can type 120 words per minutes. Can your typewriter keep up? I would like to try this new machine. I see you have extensive plastic parts. Is that innovation or are you just kowtowing to the Japanese knockoff market? I think I shall give it a simple test. (type type type) Ug! I knew I was a Royal man for a reason. I could barely get 30 words per minute on this thing. The keys are not tactile and the return lever is in the completely wrong position. I also suspect the ribbon will not last long. Good day, sir. I shall take my business down the street for I know there are several typewriter stores in this district alone.

Jim_Callahan:Alternately, the sad part about China's predicament here is that the costs of containing or neutralizing the emissions the article's talking about are, in industrial terms, almost nonexistent, and they're poisoning entire cities to save hundredths of a cent on the dollar.

Too bad that is exactly where conservatives here would like to take us with their gutting of our environmental regulations. I guess those hundredths of a cent on the dollar add up to a new yacht for a CEO somewhere.

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Here's another one. As you can see by the clock it's a little past noon. That would be the brightest part of the day and some pedestrians are actually encased in their own personal cloud of pollution. Hats were worn, not to be fashionable but to keep pieces of soot from settling in their hair... OHMAHGAWD! Look! Typewriter store!I wonder if they had typewriter nerds back then. "Greetings, store owner. I can type 120 words per minutes. Can your typewriter keep up? I would like to try this new machine. I see you have extensive plastic parts. Is that innovation or are you just kowtowing to the Japanese knockoff market? I think I shall give it a simple test. (type type type) Ug! I knew I was a Royal man for a reason. I could barely get 30 words per minute on this thing. The keys are not tactile and the return lever is in the completely wrong position. I also suspect the ribbon will not last long. Good day, sir. I shall take my business down the street for I know there are several typewriter stores in this district alone.

haha, for some reason the way you started on the pollution and trailed off into an exposition of a type writer nerds difficulty in finding the perfect typewriter gave me a chuckle. Well done.

And the "Abolish the EPA" crowd has been getting a bit louder each of the last two election cycles - tying in to their "The job creators would make more jobs if they didnt have to worry about all the red tape from Washington...."

Tell ya what - I'm OK with "red tape" from Washington if we don't turn our country back into the hellish soup of pollutants from the 30's thru the 70's. Some of the waterways are still in the middle stages of recovery from being the dumping ground to every mutant colored sludge that came out of an industrial process.

Basily Gourt:I've always maintained that all the noise about us sending our jobs to china was simply a distraction from the real benefit to manufacturers, exporting our pollution.

No, they don't give a shiat about where the pollution is, the real benefit is they can hire a whole factory full of people for the cost of a handful of US workers. They can afford to live outside the polluted city centers wherever they are.

xria:Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

China may be the most ruthlessly capitalist nation on earth at this point. I don't get why the mouthbreathers equate capitalism with democracy or mistake totalitarianism for communism. Didn't pay attention in high school I guess.

Having been there while we were building a manufacturing plant in Beijing recently, I can attest to how horrible the situation over there really is.The problem is that the Government of China is far worse than any corporation ever dreamed of being. They don't give a rats ass about the people in any way shape or form.They simply do NOT care.One large earthquake would level Beijing because they have NO building codes at all. The only requirement is the payoff of government officials.China woke up too late and is the largest economic and environmental disaster this planet will ever see.It's going to be awesome to watch, but the farrout is going to be horrific and worldwide.

I've been saying this in every doom-saying China thread that has popped up.

They're farked.

In 10-20 years respiratory issues are going to strike down their urban centers in horrifically painful ways, the rural populations aren't going to fare much better with their heavily polluted rivers putting all kinds of heavy metals into the fields they're farming and not to mention, undrinkable water. China will either ignore this to keep the manufacturing or they'll join the rest of the first world and put environmental and safety regulations into place which will cause an exodus by companies to another country that has no issue in killing it's people.

China reaps the poisonous fruit of generations of failed central economic planning. It's no coincidence that the world's Communist nations are also its worst polluters

Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

Well see the thing is in a capitalist nation, there is at least some separation between government and industry. Not usually to the extent we might like, money buys influence of all kinds of course, but there is some. So the people who have an incentive to just not give a shiat and pollute to their hearts content are not the same people who make and enforce the regulations. As such you can, sometimes at least, get effective regulations. However in a communist system, or in China's case more realistically a fascist/totalitarian system, it is the same group. The government and military own or are heavily invested in all kinds of industry. So the people who should be doing the overseeing are the ones who have an interest in ignoring any overseeing. Combine that with a pretty epic culture of corruption, and, well, you can see the results for yourself.

You saw the same kind of shiat in the Soviet Union. The government controlled everything so they had ample incentive to ignore, or just not make in the first place, any regulations.

Jim_Callahan:The fun part about partially oxidized sulfurous and carbonaceous pollutants is that they tend to get scrubbed out of the air by natural processes before they get far beyond the general hinterland of the city generating them, so we can afford to point and laugh at the idiots who don't use the numerous inexpensive and effective methods we've developed to prevent such emissions instead of being worried about it.

Alternately, the sad part about China's predicament here is that the costs of containing or neutralizing the emissions the article's talking about are, in industrial terms, almost nonexistent, and they're poisoning entire cities to save hundredths of a cent on the dollar.

Here in the US we've had to fight tooth and nail to get to where we're at. Hundredths of a cent on the dollar is enough to make some capitalists apoplectic. At every turn we've been assured that improving air quality will completely destroy the economy (much like today's CO2 issue). Then add in the weakness of the Chinese central government, and you've got a major catastrophe just waiting to happen.

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What we stupid americans don't understand that this is all an article about homosexuality in china. It's all coded so that the government can't send everyone to prison when the next party comes around.

NTTAWWT <-oblig. The gay part, not being thrown in jail for being gay. That's wrong. The throwing people in jail part not the...ah fark this.

Monkeyhouse Zendo:xria: Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

China may be the most ruthlessly capitalist nation on earth at this point. I don't get why the mouthbreathers equate capitalism with democracy or mistake totalitarianism for communism. Didn't pay attention in high school I guess.

They can't separate politics from economics? I guess they see capitalism as everyone being able to choose. I would wager that we have a corporatocracy in the US, not true capitalism. If we still had capitalism, businesses would have less power to lobby the government for benefits from taxes, to deregulation, to socializing their losses while their profits remain private.

I'm sure it would never happen, but what if we set up something like the FDIC for businesses with over maybe 150 to 300 employees or perhaps over a certain total for revenue, say $20 million a year? All profits have a 10% tax which is established to ensure there's a bailout fund specific to businesses who may eventually request bailouts. Every five years that goes without requiring a bailout, the business gets a rebate for one year of 50% discounted contributions, renewing at the beginning of each new year that there's been at least five years since their last bailout required. This way businesses are forced to budget for potential catastrophe in the future and pay for themselves and rewarded for managing their businesses responsibly. Their risk would be socialized among larger businesses only, the tax payers get left out of it.

ohokyeah:Monkeyhouse Zendo: xria: Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

China may be the most ruthlessly capitalist nation on earth at this point. I don't get why the mouthbreathers equate capitalism with democracy or mistake totalitarianism for communism. Didn't pay attention in high school I guess.

They can't separate politics from economics? I guess they see capitalism as everyone being able to choose. I would wager that we have a corporatocracy in the US, not true capitalism. If we still had capitalism, businesses would have less power to lobby the government for benefits from taxes, to deregulation, to socializing their losses while their profits remain private.

I'm sure it would never happen, but what if we set up something like the FDIC for businesses with over maybe 150 to 300 employees or perhaps over a certain total for revenue, say $20 million a year? All profits have a 10% tax which is established to ensure there's a bailout fund specific to businesses who may eventually request bailouts. Every five years that goes without requiring a bailout, the business gets a rebate for one year of 50% discounted contributions, renewing at the beginning of each new year that there's been at least five years since their last bailout required. This way businesses are forced to budget for potential catastrophe in the future and pay for themselves and rewarded for managing their businesses responsibly. Their risk would be socialized among larger businesses only, the tax payers get left out of it.

How about we just NOT bail out failed buisnesses and let them go through the normal restructuring channels? It's worked for decades.

FTFY. Anyway, it's amazing how much they've cleaned up around here. There's a stone church on 6th Ave. in downtown Pittsburgh (First Presbyterian Church) that was stained black by the pollution decades ago. I called it's "Hell's Church" because the black stone, combine with the gothic look of the church (and the red doors) made it look quite evil. It underwent a massive restoration project a few years ago, and they sandblasted most of the pollution off of the stones.

Monkeyhouse Zendo:xria: Because capitalist countries would never do anything like that...things like governments in western democracies having to pass clean air acts or car emissions regulations is laughable on the face of it, because freely operating private businesses and individuals will just do the right thing in keeping air clean without the heavy hand of government forcing them to pollute.

China may be the most ruthlessly capitalist nation on earth at this point. I don't get why the mouthbreathers equate capitalism with democracy or mistake totalitarianism for communism. Didn't pay attention in high school I guess.

And of course that has been done before - if you look at the Victorian/Gilded Ages you see the same sort of ruthless capitalism and governments largely leaving businesses to themselves, and the results were totally predictable.

It is probably the biggest criticism I have of a lot of developing economies is that the problems they are building for themselves have dozens of historical examples of why various types of development or leaving areas with a lack of regulation/enforcement is a bad idea that will cost a lot more to deal with in the future, but lots of them are walking straight into them heedlessly.

FTFY. Anyway, it's amazing how much they've cleaned up around here. There's a stone church on 6th Ave. in downtown Pittsburgh (First Presbyterian Church) that was stained black by the pollution decades ago. I called it's "Hell's Church" because the black stone, combine with the gothic look of the church (and the red doors) made it look quite evil. It underwent a massive restoration project a few years ago, and they sandblasted most of the pollution off of the stones.

Before:

[4.bp.blogspot.com image 240x320]

After:

[www.thelittlelist.net image 480x640]

I see that these pictures are in between when colour started existing too.